Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries, Brian Haughton [books you need to read .TXT] 📗

Stonehenge: Cull Center of he Ancestors

Photograph by the author.

The monumental ruins at Stonehenge brooding mysteriously on Salisbury Plain.

Looming like a group of huddled stone giants on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, in southern England, Stonehenge is perhaps the most recognizable ancient monument in the world. The name Stonehenge originates from Anglo-Saxon and roughly translates as hanging stones. But the history of the great monument dates back thousands of years before the Saxons came to Britain, sometime in the fifth century A.D. Its origins go back beyond the mysterious Celtic Druids of the last few centuries B.C., before iron was known in Europe, and before the Great Pyramid was erected in the sands of Egypt. Who built this enigmatic stone

monument and what role did it play in the prehistoric landscape of England and Europe all those thousands of years ago?

What visitors see today when they visit Stonehenge is a circular setting of large standing stones surrounded by earthworks, the remnants of the last in a series of monuments erected on the site between c. 3100 B.C. and 1600 B.C. During this period, Stonehenge was built in three broad construction phases, although there is evidence for human activity on the site both before and after these dates. In fact, one of the most important and fascinating discoveries ever made in the area of Stonehenge was that of four large Mesolithic pits or post holes dating to between 8500 and 7650 B.C., found beneath the modern carpark at the site. These huge post holes had a diameter of around 2.4 feet, and had once held pine posts. Three of the holes were aligned east to west, suggesting a ritual function-it has been suggested that they may have held totem poles, and indeed it is difficult to see what other purpose they could have served. The area around Stonehenge is full of prehistoric monuments, a number of which were constructed in the early Neolithic period (c. 4000 B.c.-3000 B.C.) and thus predate the Stonehenge monument. Examples include the long barrow (communal burial chamber) at Winterbourne Stoke, 1.4 miles away; the causewayed enclosure (a type of large prehistoric earthwork) known as Robin Hood's Ball, 1.2 miles northwest of Stonehenge; and the Lesser Cursus (a long, narrow, rectangular earthwork enclosure) 1,968 feet to the north. Thus, when the builders of the first stage of construction at Stonehenge began work, they were already operating in a sacred landscape, one that had seen ritual use for more than 5,000 years.

The first of Stonehenge's three construction phases was begun around 3100 B.C. and consisted of a circle of timber posts surrounded by a ditch and bank. This henge, (henge used in the archaeological sense to mean a circular or oval-shaped flat area enclosed by a boundary earthwork) measured approximately 360 feet in diameter, and possessed a large entrance to the northeast and another smaller one to the south. This monument was dug by hand using deer antlers and the

shoulder blades of oxen or cattle. Modern excavations of the ditch have recovered antlers used in the construction that were deliberately left behind by the builders of this monument. One odd fact about this phase is that there were other animal bones, mainly from cattle, placed in the bottom of the ditch, which proved to be 200 years older than the antler tools used to dig the structure. It seems that the people who buried the items kept them for some time before burial; perhaps the bones were sacred objects removed from a previous ritual location and brought to Stonehenge. There is little remaining evidence for Phase II at Stonehenge, though judging by finds of cremated bones from at least 200 bodies, the site must have functioned as a cremation cemetary.

Phase III at the site, beginning around 2600 B.C., involved the rebuilding of the simple earth and timber henge in stone. Two concentric circles of 80 bluestone pillars were erected at the center of the monument. These stones, weighing about 4 tons each, were carved and transported from the Preseli Hills, in Pembrokeshire, southwest Wales, and brought by a route at least 186 miles long. Apart from the bluestones, a 16 foot long blue-gray sandstone, now known as the Altar Stone, was brought to Stonehenge from near Milford Haven on the coast to the south of the Preseli Hills. How the bluestones arrived on Salisbury Plain is a subject of much controversy, though most archaeologists nowadays believe that they were brought there by man. The most obvious way for the builders of Stonehenge to transport the stones would have been to drag them down to the sea at Milford Haven by roller and sledge, and then float them to Stonehenge on rafts by sea and river-an incredible achievement of organization and dedication. An experiment to duplicate this feat was undertaken in 2001, when volunteers managed to pull a 3-ton stone down to the sea from the Preseli Hills in a wooden sledge on rollers, but when the stone was placed on the raft it slipped into the sea and sank. Intriguingly, an old legend held that Stonehenge originated with Merlin the wizard, who had a huge structure known as the Giant's Dance magically transported from Ireland. Could the journey of the bluestones form Wales be a disorted memory of Stonehenge originating in the west?

Photograph by the author.

Detail of Stonehenge, showing the huge sarsen stones.

It was also in Phase III at Stonehenge that the northeastern entrance to the enclosure was widened so that it precisely aligned with the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset of the period. Another feature added to the Stonehenge landscape during this phase was the Avenue, a ceremonial pathway consisting of a parallel pair

of ditches and banks stretching for 1.86 miles from the monument down to the River Avon.

Around 2300 B.C. the bluestones were dug up and replaced by enormous sarsen stones brought from the Marlborough Downs, 20 miles away. The sarsens, each around 13.5 feet